


Inherit

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends, Europe, F/F, Forgiveness, Future Fic, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Series, Road Trips, Slayer Connections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Faith go on a road trip in Europe to take out a vamp syndicate. The fighting goes fine, but it's the moments in between the fights that are hard.</p><p>For this prompt at comment-fic on livejournal: <i>BtVS, Buffy+/Faith, each time a Slayer dies, a little part of her gets passed to the next girl, and there's a little part of Buffy in Faith</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Inherit

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for mentions of traumatic canon events.

There's a vamp in Germany who's organizing vampires across Europe, and Faith and Buffy decide to fly over and have a nice European road trip across the continent, leaving the slayers in training to handle stateside. 

It was easier, being together with all the new slayers around. There was always something to do, someone to teach, and so it was never just the two of them, talking, hanging out for hours on end. 

They still worked together well when it came to kicking undead ass, of course. It was all the in between moments -- the long boring car rides, the tired breakfasts, the awkward silences. Neither of them ever mentioned that little stage in their lives when they were trying to kill each other.

\--

They have backpacks to carry their stakes and crossbows in, and they eat sandwiches from street stands because they can't afford restaurants, and so people assume they are American college students traveling to Europe to see the sights.

It makes Faith want to laugh hysterically, that there are people in the world who do things like that.

She looks over at Buffy with a smirk, then sees Buffy avoiding her eyes. She realizes that for Buffy, it's not silly. It's the life she thinks she would have if she weren't the slayer.

Faith elbows her lightly, pushing her out of her thoughts. "Hey, I think that dude we bought dinner from thought we were sisters." 

Buffy smiles at that and takes another bite of her ham sandwich. "He's not that far off, is he?"

"Or maybe he said we were giraffe acrobats. My French really isn't that good."

Buffy laughs and it's a sound Faith likes; she shouldn't like it, she shouldn't give a damn at all, but then it's not like she's ever had good sense anyway.

\--

It's going pretty well until it isn't. Which, Faith figures, is how these things always go.

They took the tunnel up to London to get the England branch of the vampire alliance, but while they were there they found a demon ring selling low-power witches to the highest bidder (presumably the more powerful ones were too hard to catch).

Faith, in a perfectly reasonable interrogation tactic, had broken the arm of their accountant, a squeal of a man. He was human, but he was a human helping demons, and he was large and muscular and thought that she and Buffy would be scared when he yelled at them to leave.

He cried very loudly.

Buffy, naturally, disapproved, but it's not like Faith wasn't used to living with Buffy's disapproval. 

It was strange, though, their new cameraderie chilled after years of earning it back, by one asshole's arm. Their conversations were a little less light, a little less natural after that, and Faith found herself thinking about their past more often, found herself wondering if they had ever really gotten over their old war, or if Buffy would ever stop worrying that she was the same old Faith.

(She was the same old Faith of course. She just ... did different things.)

They went back down to the Continent after their work was done, and headed to Austria. Faith tried not to be bitter that their friendship was still so delicate (bitter drove her to some bad places, she knew).

They listened to the radio the whole time so they wouldn't have to talk, even in the mountains, when it was half static.

\--

Faith dreams of vampires attacking her. A gang of them, and she has no stake.

She also has no clue. She runs from them, heart pounding, wondering what these things are, these animals, these monsters. She is wearing a ridiculous dress.

They catch her, almost devour her, are about to sink her teeth in her, and she is screaming, wailing, terrified.

Then she's suddenly somewhere else. A vamp, old, face gnarled with power, is after her. She goes to him even though she knows she's walking to her death. She's wearing a dress again, white, and it's not warm enough for the cool night breeze, but she keeps walking, following a child to the monster. 

He bites down on her flesh, and she feels the life drain out of her. She wants to scream, to fight, but all she can do is fall, helpless. She knows she is dying, she rages against it, but her body does nothing even as her mind screams to get up and fight. She yells, she sobs, but her body will not wake.

"Faith!" A voice cuts through the noise, slashing clear through the monsters and the screams. 

Faith wakes up. There's a body hovering over her and by instinct Faith pushes it away, terrified.

If it were anyone but Buffy, they would have flown across the room, head smashing against the wall. (There was a reason Faith didn't ever let guys spend the night).

Buffy fell back a step but then recovered. "It's okay."

The room was tilting back and forth and Faith realized it was because she was breathing so hard.

"It's okay," Buffy repeated, hands up, slowly moving to place a hand, gentle, on Faith's shoulder. Faith let her.

"It's cool, B. No problem," Faith said, looking at the ceiling.

"We all get them," Buffy said, eyes so full of caring, so full of concern, it would make Faith laugh if she were in a better mood.

"Yeah," Faith said, shrugging off Buffy's hand. They all got nightmares about the lives of former slayers. But somehow Buffy had never figured out that Faith dreamed of Buffy's life, before her first death, before Buffy's power shot across the country and made Faith the force of vengeance she always wished she could be. Even before Faith came to Sunnydale, she had dreamt of Buffy.

Faith looked up at her, stared at her. Buffy's eyes looked worried, gaunt. Tired. 

For a second, Faith wanted to tell her that she knew exactly what it felt like when Buffy first discovered vamps. She knew what it felt like when the Master killed her.

She knew, deep in her bones, how Buffy felt the day her parents told her they were getting divorced. And the day Buffy realized her father didn't actually want to be part of her life. 

She knew other things, too, things that Buffy would never consent to telling anyone. 

"Want to talk?" Buffy asked gently.

"Nope." Faith stared at her, eyes still wet.

Buffy looked disappointed, but she nodded, went back to her own bed.

Faith looked away from her, toward the window, and slowly caught her breath. She tried to push away the terror, the pain, tried to focus on the connection, the sensation of being in someone else's head, of being, somehow, something other than alone. When the nightmare was over, the closeness always lingered, as if she could feel Buffy's breath whispering in her ear, as if Buffy were wrapped around her in her bed.

Faith curled up on the bed, holding her own shoulders, still facing away. She tried, again, to sleep, but she could hear Buffy's breathing across the room, knew that Buffy was watching her, still worried.

"B," Faith said, eyes still closed.

"Yeah?"

"We're good, right."

"Yeah, Faith. We're good."

Faith relaxed into her pillow. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she let herself fall into sleep, her mind still grasping at the remnant threads of Buffy's thoughts, Buffy's heart, pounding inside her chest.


End file.
